


highs in the low teens

by oflights



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Coming of Age, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Pining, fortnite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 08:20:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17936201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oflights/pseuds/oflights
Summary: Samuel Girard has a crush on EJ. No, wait, half the team seems to have had a crush on EJ, just not Nate. Yeah. That should be the end of it.(It's not.)





	highs in the low teens

**Author's Note:**

> why is this so long @ god. i'm sorry. there's no reason this should've taken me literal months to write and yet! here we are. sigh. takes place in 17-18 season and mostly follows the right timelines, especially ej's (depressing) injury timeline, with some fudging at the end because everything happened really fast. 
> 
> this started as an idea i took to the group chat and bloomed there so thank you avsfam!! the best always. thanks to bridget for the beta; title is from the mountain goats, which is apparently my nate/ej mood music unfortunately!

**prologue**

When the house is done, like really done, like when Nate isn’t spending odd nights, days and weekends at his parents’ place and swearing because he keeps remembering clothes he dropped off at the new place—when it’s absolutely done, Nate sends out a bunch of pics of everything and an open invitation to the guys. It’s equal parts a flex and a genuine, searing need to share all this space, so much fucking space, now that it’s really, truly his.

 _Get out here before sid moves and maybe he’ll sign your shit_ Nate sends, half joking and half trying to snag some of the rookies. They all take it as a full joke, which is whatever.

Josty _does_ wind up coming out for a whole long weekend, flying out from Denver and lounging next to Nate’s pool like this is the life he was born for. The other Tyson comes up for longer but Nate remembers less of that, which is a typical Barrie visit. It’s still a success because they don’t destroy anything except a few baking pans Nate was never going to use anyway.

Mikko’s too far but Gabe makes an appearance, taking himself on a tour of Nate’s whole place, grinning smugly the whole time like he’s the one that made it all happen. “I’m proud of you,” he says at the end of it, and Nate punches him on his rock solid, stupidly thick arm and tries not to feel stupidly pleased.

 _When you getting out here man?_ he texts EJ when it’s August and buddies have come and gone and the offseason is sliding away like one of his runny omelets.

 _On my way_ EJ sends back, and Nate rolls his eyes.

 _I’m serious_ he taps out slowly, like the gravity of his words will make it through that way. He’s on a deck chair looking out over the lake, Cox curled up at the end of it and taking up way too much room. Duke has his own chair next to them, looking out over the lake like Nate is but panting more. Nate takes a quick pic of him and sends it to EJ for good measure. _Duke’s saving your seat, come on._

He’s imagining EJ in the deck chair then, making cracks about the finish on the deck and how much sun he gets back here and how much he resembles a lobster. Nate can practically hear him, which is why it’s kind of a bummer when EJ’s reply is eventually _Can’t, I’m babysitting in Denver._

Nate knows that; there’s a handful of younger guys like Josty, JT and a few others all training in Denver together and EJ had gone already to join them and get to know them a bit more before the season, all part of making sure no one gets fucking embarrassed again this year. It’s a good gesture, even though Nate had already ripped him for being a brownnoser about it. No sense in changing course now.

 _Do them all a favor and come visit me_ Nate sends with purpose. He laughs a little when EJ just sends him a few middle finger emojis, rolling his eyes again too. _No one should trust you around rookies_ he adds for good measure, his tongue between his teeth in a smile no one can see but the dogs.

 _That’s true, but oh well_ EJ answers, and Nate sighs at his stubborn jackass teammate and decides to leave it alone after that. He’s getting ready to go to Sid’s for dinner, namely putting shoes on, when he gets another text: _Next summer. When you don’t need a babysitter either_ with the patented passive-aggressive smile emoji.

 _Bitch_ Nate sends back for a few different reasons.

 

~*~

 

It’s been a couple months since the trade, long enough that only every other media question revolves around it instead of every single one like a few weeks ago. Nate gears up for the All-Star game wondering how many more points he has to put up to make those questions go away, and though there’s no concrete answer available to him he just resolves to put up a lot. Like a fuckton. There’s playoffs on the table too, after all.

And there’s Sammy, who is quiet and a little reserved but finally starting to seem comfortable enough around the guys that even he has shaken off most of the shadows of the trade, like he’s been here forever and he’s where he belongs.

When the guys ever talk about it, Nate takes to calling it “the Girard trade”, which makes Sammy smile and makes everyone hoot and smack him on the back. EJ does it one night after they’ve had a respectable few to drink, sitting around a decimated table in a steakhouse somewhere in Dallas, jolting Sammy in his seat and then leaving his arm on the back of his chair.

“Oh boy,” Gabe says from Nate’s right, and Nate gives him a raised eyebrow. Gabe gives a little shake of his head back but he drinks his beer with yet another big, smug grin on his face. That grin stays there until they break things up and all head back to the hotel together, walking behind Sammy and EJ to the team bus.

“What was that?” Nate finally asks, losing his patience. Not for the first time, he wishes Tyson hadn’t broken his stupid hand because he lacks all of Nate’s subtlety and would’ve demanded answers from Gabe ages ago. 

He probably would’ve yelled something very rude when Gabe simply puts his finger to his lips and goes, “Shh,” but that’s not Nate’s style. Nate’s style is to duck and jam an elbow into possibly the only soft spot on Gabe’s body that exists right below his ribcage, still disconcertingly hard.

Gabe yelps and shoves back at him and they wind up boarding the bus way after everyone else, who watch their little wrestling match and catcall from the windows. “Finish him!” Comes yells, banging on the glass, but Gabe graciously calls a draw even though he somehow has Nate in a headlock at the end of it.

“Would you chill?” Gabe asks as they finally get on the bus and sit next to each other up front. He glances back at their no longer captive audience and then drops heavily into his seat. “Okay, I don’t think he can hear us.”

“ _Who_?” Nate asks, resisting the urge to reach out and just yank a fistful of Gabe’s beautiful hair. Something else Tyson wouldn’t have skipped, and maybe he has the right idea.

“Yeah, who?” Mikko adds, popping up over the back of their seats. His seatmate is Barbs, headphones on already, blissfully ignoring them and Mikko’s giant ass in his face as he hoists himself up.

“Sammy,” Gabe says in a lowered voice. “Come on, did you see him at dinner? He’s got it bad.”

“Got what bad?” Nate asks articulately, glancing back at where Sammy is sitting across from EJ, head bent over his phone as usual. He doesn’t look like he has anything, bad or otherwise, but maybe Gabe knows something he doesn’t. Maybe it’s some weird captain instinct, like how he can always tell when Tyson is painfully hungover even when he wears sunglasses and manages to go a whole morning practice without puking.

“Is he sick?” Mikko asks in the same lowered voice as Gabe, furrowing his brow.

Gabe looks between them both and then laughs a little, looking up at the bus ceiling. “Oh my god, you two. How are you both so clueless? Unreal.”

“Stop being a dick and tell us,” Nate says, annoyed. He looks at Sammy again, then notices too late that Mikko is also looking at him and now EJ is looking at both of them and mouthing _what the fuck?_ Nate turns back to Gabe. “Let’s go Landy.”

“All right, since I need to spell it out for you morons,” Gabe says, rolling his eyes. Then he lowers his voice in a dramatic sort of hush. “Sam totally has a crush on EJ.”

Nate snorts, which turns into a laugh when he catches sight of Mikko’s wide eyes. “Oh come on,” Nate says, shaking his head. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I’m dead serious, Nate. It’s pretty obvious.”

“You got all that from two seconds at dinner? Really?” Nate glances back again; this time EJ is staring openly at them, and when Nate meets his eyes, EJ slowly draws one finger across his throat.

Nate sticks his tongue out at him and focuses instead on Sammy, who is still looking at his phone and doesn’t at all look like he’s crushing on the giant loser sitting across from him.

“I’m always right when it comes to this stuff,” Gabe says, his typical smugness coating every word. “It’s part of being a captain, you know. As an alternate, you could probably stand to brush up on your emotional awareness every once in a while.”

“Emotional aware—you’re an idiot,” Nate says. “None of this has anything to do with being a captain, you’re just a gossipy creep.”

“I think he’s right, Nate,” Mikko says, shrugging at the fiercely unimpressed look Nate shoots him in response. “I see Sammy laughing at EJ all the time. He doesn’t laugh for everyone, you know? He’s quiet.”

“He laughs at EJ because EJ’s an assclown.” Nate honestly can’t believe they’re having this discussion right now. Crushes among teammates aren’t super weird—Nate’s best friends with Tyson, he’s seen the absolute worst of it and he has a high fucking threshold for that stuff—but Sammy just doesn’t seem like the type to get into that. He’s so shy and sweet and innocent.

And EJ is, well, EJ. He’s an assclown.

So Nate doesn’t get it, and despite Mikko and Gabe’s best efforts to convince him, he remains a skeptic. “Just watch him,” Gabe says, and Nate rolls his eyes and says, “Sure, yeah, I’ll get right on that,” pretty sure he’s going to forget about it sooner rather than later anyway.

Nate does think about it that night though, when he’s pretty close to being asleep and kind of blinking up at the ceiling. He’s thinking about playing back in junior, when everyone was the same age or around there and kind of ignorant of different hockey skill levels. Crushes happened all the time back then. Nate’s pretty sure he fell in love with at least one different Moosehead every other week and that was fine, it wasn’t serious.

It’s different in the NHL. Guys are in different spots in life and you’re friends, close knit and tight with each other but it’s so hockey-based. It’s more of like your job than your life here, and that’s how Nate always tries to think of it. The Avs have a really good locker room right now, and Nate is really close with a good group of guys, but he can’t actually imagine getting into any of them like that. Especially not _EJ_.

He scoffs to himself, alone in the dark, and closes his eyes. “Yeah right,” he mutters to no one, and falls asleep.

 

  
  

They’re winning a _ton_ and it’s really fucking fun. Points after points after points so that when they finally do lose, it feels a bit like a punch to the gut.

“Thank god,” Tyson says when they’re relatively alone at breakfast the morning after, trying to shake off the loss at Montreal before they have to get on a plane to St. Louis. Nate had been grateful that Tyson was finally declared well enough to travel with them because he missed him, but right now as he blinks at him blearily and tries his very best to glare, he can’t quite remember why.

“Seriously?”

“Well yeah, come on, I didn’t want us to lose my first game back,” Tyson says, completely unflappable, bright-eyed and probably still in a good mood from all the delicious Montreal press box food he crammed in last night. Nate does better at finding his glare. “Look, you know it was going to happen. The universe intervened.”

“Or maybe—get this—we just don’t lose at all. You come back and we keep winning. Could’ve been cheering for that, you know.” Nate’s not actually too upset about the loss; they’re in a good place and it’s been long enough since last season that losing doesn’t quite give him that paralyzed, sick feeling of hopelessness anymore.

“I wasn’t cheering for us to _lose_ , I just wanted the loss to happen before I got back.” Tyson is still totally unfazed by Nate’s grumpiness, struggling to spread an entire pad of butter shaped like a seashell across his bagel and giving at least 60% of his attention to that struggle. “What, did you think we were gonna win out the rest of the season?”

“Maybe,” Nate says, just on principle. Tyson laughs at him, so it clearly doesn’t work. “You don’t know!”

“What doesn’t he know?” EJ asks, dropping a full plate onto the table with a _plop_ and then sitting down in the chair next to Tyson just as carelessly. Nate’s OJ shakes in his glass. “I mean, it’s a long list I’m sure, but what are we thinking this time?”

“Screw you, Johnson,” Tyson says. “I know _plenty_. This time, I totally knew the streak had to end sometime—”

“Wow, when’s your genius grant hitting direct deposit?” EJ says, and Nate snorts despite himself.

Tyson continues as if he hadn’t spoken. “—so I was just happy that it happened before I came back, that’s all. Nothing wrong with that, right?”

They both look at EJ, who is cutting his pancakes into pieces so large it kind of defeats the purpose of cutting them, in Nate’s opinion. He blinks at them with a full mouth, as if just realizing they’re waiting for some kind of verdict. “Oh, what? Sorry, I wasn’t listening.”

Nate gives a deep, tired sigh. “He said he was happy that—”

“Hey!” EJ suddenly cuts in, looking over Nate’s shoulder. “Over here, G, you can sit with us!”

Nate turns to see Sammy freeze with his plate in his hands. He’d clearly been headed for a table with Bourque and Bernie and that makes sense, but EJ is obnoxious and waves his arms over his head like he’s helping a plane land. Sammy hunches his shoulders a little and then comes over, head bent low over his plate once he’s sitting down.

“Hi,” he says to the table, literally looking down at the tablecloth instead of addressing any of them directly, but Nate’s learned by now that that’s typical Sammy. He’ll open up the longer he sits with them, especially if—

“So you dragged all your family out here to see the game and they had to watch that crap,” EJ says, shaking his head. “Tough break, man. Tys was rooting for the Habs last night so it’s all on him.”

“I was _not_ ,” Tyson says, voice high as he gives EJ another OJ-jostling shove. “I was just saying—”

“Please don’t tell us what you were saying again,” Nate groans, putting his forehead in his hands and then peeking over at Sammy, who’s now smiling a little at his scrambled eggs. “We don’t want to hear it.”

“Maybe Sammy does want to hear it. You don’t speak for him.”

“I’m making an educated guess.” Sammy looks up to mouth _thank you_ at Nate, who gives a gracious nod of his head in return.

“Well, at least you didn’t go to another continent and lay an egg in front of everyone you’ve ever known like Landy did,” EJ says, voice getting progressively louder as he leans his chair back towards Gabe, sitting at the next table over with Nemo.

Gabe calls, “Eat my ass, Johnson,” across the lovely breakfast buffet room at the Ritz-Carlton Montreal, and EJ just grins and turns around to face him.

“Just name the time and place, Landeskog.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Tyson says, voice high again. Nate shakes off some of his laughter to follow his gaze over to Sammy, who is bright red and back to staring determinedly at his eggs. “Enough of that, probably. You’ll get ‘em next time, Sammy, don’t worry.”

It’s friendly enough but also weirdly fake, like Tyson’s putting on a show. Nate looks around for cameras, trying not to scowl, but just lets his face cloud with confusion when he fails to find any. He wonders what’s up with that; usually Tyson’s the first to jump into some aggressive innuendo fights, especially involving Gabe and EJ.

He’s successfully pulled the conversation under control, though, and they start talking about the game and Sammy’s family and it’s fine. Nate brushes the whole thing off, but it’s Tyson, so he’s going to hear about it soon and he doesn’t have much of a choice.

“Damn,” he says when they’re on the plane to St. Louis and a bunch of guys have settled in for naps. Nate had fully been planning on a nap, too, but Tyson had shaken him hard when he pulled the blanket over his face. “Poor Sammy.”

Nate feels a rush of déjà vu and then just gives up and leans into it by looking down the aisle of the plane at where Sammy’s sitting, this time with Bourque. They’re talking to each other and looking at shit on their phones and look perfectly happy; nothing that should be prompting the sorrowful, tortured look on Tyson’s face right now.

“What’s wrong with him now?” Nate asks tiredly, and then he contemplates making a break for the emergency exit when Tyson answers.

“He’s got it bad, doesn’t he?”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Nate says. “You people are insane, you know that?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You and Gabe, and Mikko I guess, but I blame Gabe for that.”

“What do they have to do with—”

“This whole crush thing!” Nate says, maybe a little too loud. Across the aisle and a few rows up, Comes is looking back at them with raised eyebrows. When Nate catches his eye, he waggles his eyebrows and blows Nate a kiss, laughing and turning back around when Nate flips him off.

“Right, it’s totally a thing,” Tyson says. He looks very grim. “Look, this is a rough stage in a rookie’s life, okay? We have to be supportive.”

“You’re a lunatic. Even if Sammy does have a crush on EJ, of all people—”

“What’s that supposed to mean? There’s no shame in it, you know.”

“There’s loads of shame in crushing on EJ, honestly,” Nate says. He sneaks a look over at EJ just to reinforce his own point, and nods firmly. EJ is sitting with his seat all the way back and his socked feet up on the seat in front of him; he has a Tootsie Pop in his mouth and seems to be playing his stupid horse game on his phone, brow furrowed in concentration.

Nate takes in the scene and feels a flicker of something close to fondness flutter through his stomach, but mostly he’s just exasperated and still a little baffled. Who could ever crush on _that_?

“He doesn’t even have teeth,” Nate mutters, mostly to himself, but Tyson squawks in some kind of outrage, bringing Nate back into this dumbass conversation.

“Wow. _Wow_. Are you kinkshaming me?”

“Excuse me?”

“First it was the comments at Halloween—”

“I said I was sorry about that!” Nate is very, very desperate not to repeat that altercation again.

“—and now you’re ragging on my taste in men! Unbelievable. I thought you were an open-minded person, Nate. I thought you said love is love.”

“I said—what the holy fuck are you talking about?” His mind is whirring to catch up on the wild turn this conversation has taken, and it grinds to a screeching, horrifying halt as something finally registers. “Wait a second.” Nate lowers his voice to a scratchy, panicked whisper. “ _Do you have a crush on EJ?_ ”

Tyson bursts out laughing, head tossed back and mouth wide open, and Nate contemplates smothering him with his neck pillow.

It takes a while, long enough for Nate to actually go for the neck pillow and for Tyson to have flail away and pull a chunk of his hair to get him to let it go, before Tyson stops laughing and finally fucking explains himself. He still waits until they lose the attention they’ve drawn from mostly everyone around them.

EJ is still engrossed in his horse game and Nate thinks that’s for the best.

“Okay,” Tyson says, and Nate twitches with both impatience and quiet, certain dread. “It’s like this—”

“I can’t fucking believe you want to rail EJ. Unbelievable.”

“Listen, stop talking about it like that. Both ways, honestly.”

“What?”

“I mean like it’s some ridiculous, insane thing to want,” Tyson says, gesturing ahead of them. Nate opens his mouth to of course argue that it _is_ an insane, ridiculous thing to want, but Tyson rushes forward. “No, shut up. And also stop talking about it in the present tense.”

Nate pauses, narrowing his eyes. “Oh?”

“Yeah, _oh_. I told you, it’s a rookie phase. I obviously got over it. It mostly started when I was going back and forth from Cleveland, but the peak was definitely when I was up and staying at his place for a while.” Tyson shrugs. “He made an impression.”

Nate isn’t any less baffled, but he’s also starting to feel like a bit of an oblivious idiot about it, and that pisses him off. “What do you mean when you were staying at his place—I knew you then!”

He can’t imagine knowing Tyson and not knowing when he’s into someone. Tyson basically takes out print ads in magazines. His boners, metaphorical and otherwise, are all but projected onto the ice at Pepsi Center. He is not a subtle person and Nate has chosen to live with this as Tyson’s best friend. He won’t use the term hero but it comes to mind.

Tyson shrugs. “It wasn’t anything like the big deal you’re making it out to be. I’m telling you, it was just a crush. I got over it as I grew up a little and got to be better friends with him.”

Somehow, Tyson makes the notion of getting over a crush on your older teammate sound like something noble and mature and dignified. Nate rolls his eyes so hard it kind of hurts.

“I just can’t believe this. So you’re saying this is a—a thing that happens to rookies, a phase, and it’s crushing on EJ of all people and that’s—it’s totally chill and real and normal.” Tyson nods firmly, looking endlessly patient. Nate throws his hands up in frustration. “So I guess it just skipped me, then?”

Tyson laughs again but for once the severe look on Nate’s face manages to keep it quick, and he hastens to clarify. “I mean, yeah, it seems so. It was different for you, though.”

“Right, I wasn’t a lunatic.”

“No, you definitely were, but you were just—you didn’t have the same relationship with EJ as we did. You weren’t his rookie.” Tyson smiles, eyes fond and faraway. “You were Gabe’s rookie, and mine a little bit.”

“We were rookies at the same time, Tys.”

“Whatever. Ryan’s rookie then, I don’t give a fuck. You know what I mean. And you didn’t live with EJ, you lived with like—adult families. You were still a kid really. You just didn’t think of him the way we did.”

Nate balks, the way he always does when someone brings up how young he was when he broke into the NHL and how long it took him to go through the accelerated if nontraditional growth process most hockey players go through. Tyson knows it’s a sensitive subject and he knows Nate’s been trying to do some work on himself to sort of scrub that reputation a bit. Like, his parents only visit him once a month now. There’s been progress made.

There’s a moment where he can start arguing about that, where all of this still ridiculous EJ crush stuff can just end and turn into a “stop making fun of Nate for taking a little longer to grow up than some other guys” conversation, the kind they’ve had a million times. But something stops Nate up.

With now familiar growing dread, Nate slowly asks, “Hey Tyson. Why did you say _we_?”

Tyson grins, toothy and big. “Oh yeah. Gabe totally had a rookie crush on EJ too.”

This time around, Nate attempts to smother _himself_ with the neck pillow, and he’s only unsuccessful because Tyson tackles him, laughing hard in his face.

 

 

Nate goes to Tampa for the All-Star Game and he’s happy about it for a few reasons. For one, it’s the first year he actually feels like he belongs there, like he’s earned it, and there’s definitely something satisfying in that.

For another, maybe the main reason: there’s no Gabe, Tyson, EJ or anyone who may have ever had a crush on EJ at the All-Star Game. He does his best to avoid Alex Pietrangelo just in case but he thinks it’s a safe bet.

Nate knows from last year that the All-Star Game is mostly drinking and showing off a little. Nobody takes it too seriously. Last year he felt a little guilty getting this kind of break from the shitshow season he was in the middle of; this year he’s definitely absolutely earned it and it makes it way more fun.

Of course, then he goes back to Denver, gets on the road with his team, and wrecks his own fucking shoulder in Vancouver.

“You did this,” Nate tells Tyson when Tyson comes to find him in the trainers’ room after the game, still in his all gear and sweaty hair and taller on his skates. He looks stricken, eyes going wide with guilt, and Nate almost feels bad. Almost. “You— _invited_ this with all that talk about the universe and intervening and shit that’s meant to be. You cursed me.”

“Nate—”

“And we fucking _lost_ ,” Nate says, voice a little scratchy. He’s kind of terrified about how bad his shoulder is and what the team is going to do without him and what _he’s_ going to do if he has to miss a lot of time and—

“Yeah, we lost,” Tyson says, letting out a long, breathy sigh. “Maybe if our MVP hadn’t hurled himself into a Swedish wall because he can’t take a fuckin check, we’d have won.” He raises his chin.

Nate slugs him as hard as he can with his good arm, and it feels really good. He might have to suggest that as part of his impending recovery routine.

“I forgive you,” he tells Tyson eventually, the next day at practice when he’s getting ready to go home to have the shoulder looked at some more. “Curses aren’t real.”

“I know,” Tyson says, and he probably does. But he and Gabe still show up at Nate’s house fresh off the plane home from Western Canada, holding more pizza than three grown hockey players could ever possibly finish. “This is your Postmate, Claudius,” Tyson tells him, gesturing at Gabe who is of course holding all of the pizzas. “I caught him sneaking bites in the driveway, don’t tip him.”

“Get off my property,” Nate tells the both of them. They push past him through the door, take their shoes off, almost lose the pizzas because Cox is all over them, and then they all wind up on the couch together, watching an episode of The Wire that Nate has seen a dozen times.

“You can’t even give me an Idris Elba episode, can you?” Tyson says mournfully. “You have the worst comfort shows.”

“Let him cope how he wants, Tys,” Gabe says, sitting on Nate’s other side. That might be a nightmare under normal circumstances, and maybe it will be once Gabe and Tyson start getting into it with each other with Nate in the middle, but for now it’s kind of nice. They both still smell a little like the showers they’d taken before they’d gotten on the plane in Winnipeg, which means they hadn’t even stopped home, which is some kind of dedication.

Nate has good, kind friends on this team that always look after him, even now that he insists he doesn’t need looking after. He’s not a kid but he also understands friendship and he knows that Gabe and Tyson are good to him. He doesn’t think any of them would’ve made it through last season if they didn’t have each other.

And then Nate rethinks the entire notion of friendship when Tyson says, “He knows we used to be into EJ by the way,” through a mouthful of pizza.

Maybe instead of having friends, Nate should just find the most remote spot on the most remote mountain and live there for good. He can bring Cox for protection, eat only what he can catch, store preserves for the winter. He could make a good life for himself, he thinks. No pizza or comfort is worth this.

“Finally,” Gabe groans, tilting his head up to glare at the ceiling. “Honestly this whole Sammy thing has brought back some really interesting feelings I haven’t thought about in ages. Like—”

“Why’d it have to my shoulder and not my ears?” Nate wonders out loud. “Why didn’t Edler just chop them right off? Why?”

“Drama queen, oh my god,” Tyson says. “This needs to be talked about, Nate!”

“Why the _hell_ does it need to be talked about? For what purpose?”

“For the purpose of you accepting that EJ is a snack and it’s perfectly legitimate to be into him,” Tyson says very firmly. He gives a little shrug. “From the rookie perspective, I mean.”

“Don’t say snack. Shut up.”

“You’re being a baby about this,” Gabe says, and Nate’s nostrils flare in anger. He _hates_ that.

“Honestly I’ve been perfectly normal about this, you two just won’t leave it alone,” Nate tells them, looking on each side so he can make eye contact one after the other. “It’s weird and I’m never going to get the appeal. Like I said, it skipped me.”

“Sure, okay, but it hasn’t skipped Sammy, so you being a moody teenager about it all whenever it comes up isn’t helpful,” Gabe continues, and Nate clenches his fists. He is _not_ a moody teenager.

“Why does it need to keep coming up? I’m pretty sure Sam would just prefer nobody talk about it,” Nate says. He stumbles only slightly over this next part. “I mean, if it were me, I wouldn’t want anyone to call attention to it or make a big deal out of it. And Sam’s even shier, and newer, and they’re D partners—you should both just shut up about it probably.”

Gabe and Tyson actually fall silent after that; Nate stares straight ahead instead of at one or the other and can feel them both staring at him in turn. Tyson whistles slowly, like an idiot. Gabe’s nodding with his fingers tapping against his chin.

“That was some deep stuff, Nate,” Tyson says. “Wisdom beyond your years.”

“I’m gonna lose my shit on you if you don’t stop it with that.”

“He’s right,” Gabe says, still doing his stupid ass Thinker pose. “Definitely more mature than I was giving you credit for. You’re right.”

“Of course I’m right.”

“There’s just one last thing,” Tyson says, and now Nate can feel them looking at each other over his head, probably grinning like idiots.

“No more things,” Nate groans, but as always, he doesn’t have much of a choice in this.

“Just because it skipped you, doesn’t mean it’ll never get you,” Gabe says with all the smugness of a cat, jamming a slice of pizza into his mouth for punctuation. Tyson lets out a laugh that would be called an evil cackle in most circumstances and Nate groans again and puts his head in his hand.

 

  
Injured or not, tortured by his friends’ taste in men or not, Nate still has to go to Gabe’s Super Bowl party a few days later. It’s tradition at this point and it’s made very clear that he doesn’t have a choice but to attend.

It’s kind of a sore spot, everything else aside: Nate had briefly lobbied to host this year and was shut down pretty easily by Gabe. “I host it every year,” Gabe had said, and that was pretty much the end of the discussion. Other acceptable counters were “You don’t even really like football,” and “Wouldn’t it really be your parents hosting?” which were both technically true, but Nate’s still kind of pouty about it. 

Comes had done Canadian Thanksgiving, Gabe had done American Thanksgiving, Tyson did the holiday party, and now Gabe gets the Super Bowl again—Nate just wants at least one of those and he wishes he could get that desire to be taken seriously. He has a nice house now, not a family’s basement or his former teammate’s condo but a real, proper house and he can do parties there. He wants to do them.

So it smarts a little to head over to Gabe’s—“I don’t even really like football,” Nate grumbles to Tyson when he gets there, making Tyson crack up—but a few beers and some good snacks later and he’s mostly getting over it. Gabe put out tons of his favorite chips, like he knew somehow, and Nate uses his bad mood and pitiable injury status as an excuse to snack way too much, and it’s fine.

The whole team is there, with wives and girlfriends and a handful of Gabe’s family still visiting. Nate hangs out with Zoey because she’s good company and, when she seems as bored with the game as he is, takes her out into the yard to throw one of her rope toys around.

“Are you still pouting?” EJ asks from the doorway out to the patio, and Nate jumps.

“I’m not pouting,” Nate says, and then he revises, “I was never pouting. Shut up.”

“Don’t worry, bud. You can host the Valentine’s Day party,” EJ says, grinning. His eyes are glittery and he has a beer bottle dangling from his fingertips and Nate is—fine. He has been purposefully not weird around EJ lately. For example, his heart is racing but that’s probably from running around with Zoey.

“Stop.”

“St. Patrick’s Day? What about Earth Day? We can go plant some trees, right?”

“I’m busy,” Nate says, turning back to Zoey, who is sitting with her rope toy dangling from her mouth, looking up at Nate as if to say _we doing this?_

He grips the handle end of the toy and starts to tug, gently until Zoey bares her teeth and starts tugging back, and then they’re wrestling on the cold grass and Nate tries to be extremely unaware of EJ watching them.

He snorts eventually, drawing Nate’s attention again before he can help it. “See, drama queen, shoulder’s fine. You just want a make-up break.”

“What?”

“We all got a vacation for the All-Star Break, you had to go be our All-Star in Tampa, and I know you were jealous.”

“They gave us puppies in Tampa,” Nate says, looking up and right in EJ’s eyes. He smirks. “Who’s jealous?”

“Sure, sure. Just take it easy with Zoey, she’s not one of your crazy beasts.”

“Zoey can handle anything.” Nate pauses. “Is this your way of telling me to be careful with my shoulder?”

EJ doesn’t say anything, just drinking his beer with his eyebrows raised. He shrugs after a moment of Nate just staring at him, and Nate smiles.

He throws the rope toy across the yard and says, “Go get it! There we go!” as Zoey bounces away. She comes racing back with it and suddenly she’s dropping it at Nate and EJ’s feet, getting praise and “Good girl! That’s a good girl!” from both of them. EJ’s now close enough to touch Nate’s shoulder with his, his voice soft and his eyes affectionate as he gives Zoey firm, hearty pets.

“I want to come back fast,” Nate says. “I’m not going to do anything stupid.”

“That’ll be a first.”

“I’m doing okay,” Nate continues, and EJ drinks more beer. Nate keeps looking at him, and okay, maybe he’s been standing still long enough that his heart racing isn’t from playing with Zoey. Maybe he _is_ being more ridiculous about the whole EJ thing than Gabe and Tyson have.

Maybe he should stop trying to force himself not to think about Gabe and Tyson hooking up with EJ. He feels certain that they did, even when he didn’t want to think about it. But this close to EJ, it suddenly feels completely impossible that they didn’t, knowing how they are, knowing how—

“Hey,” Nate says, abrupt enough that EJ turns to look at him. Nate takes the opportunity to lean up and press his lips to EJ’s, kissing him gently and thoughtfully.

He can feel how surprised EJ is, the way his eyebrows go up even farther. His mouth opens a little under Nate’s in what’s probably pure shock instead of an invitation, so Nate keeps it chaste and then pulls back after a few more moments, licking his lips and looking up at EJ curiously.

EJ looks as shocked as he’d felt, so much that Nate can’t help snickering. “Your face,” he says, and it’s a thrill when EJ goes a little red, though he also narrows his eyes.

“Come here,” EJ says with a determined set to his jaw that he usually brings out during particularly dramatic intermissions. Nate revels in the feeling of being a game situation that EJ intends to figure out for a brief moment before EJ’s lips find his again, pressing firmly with none of the questions or searching Nate had had.

He thinks this one would’ve lasted longer than the last one—EJ certainly seems in it for the long haul, he’s suddenly got his hand spread out flat across Nate’s back, pushing him in close—but there’s a strangled sort of noise that comes from the patio door that makes them both jolt away from each other.

Nate looks over with not a little bit of dread and has the feeling basically triple when he sees Sammy in the doorway, face red as a beet, eyes wide.

“Ah, fuck,” EJ says softly, and he’s still close enough that Nate can feels breath against the short hairs at his temple.

“Hey man,” Nate says, smooth as anything. He hopes all three of them can just ignore the slightly manic note in his voice. “What’s up?”

“Pizza’s here,” Sammy says, accent just that much thicker. He clears his throat, opens his mouth again, then just turns around still holding that wide-eyed, stunned look that definitely spells issues for Nate.

“Of course,” Nate says with a groan. “Of course that just happened.”

“Well, maybe randomly kissing people in the open air increases those odds,” EJ says. He seems way more amused than pissed off or worried, which is just typical.

“I wasn’t really thinking about that,” Nate snaps, and EJ just laughs. He’s petting Zoey in that firm, thorough way he has, making her ears flop around, and she’s pressed up against his leg, loving every minute. Nate makes himself look away to give EJ a glare.

“What were you thinking about, then?” EJ asks, still just looking way too amused.

Nate shrugs. “I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, I guess.” He’s willing his face not to go hot—probably a losing battle with his complexion—and tries to project the most unimpressed feeling he can muster. He must succeed a little because EJ finally looks more confused than amused, but before he can ask any more questions that Nate probably won’t know how to answer right, Gabe appears at the patio door, also looking confused.

“Hey, do either of you know why Sam just took an entire pizza and locked himself in the downstairs bathroom?”

EJ snorts and Nate sighs, shaking his head. “Because he’s been spending too much time around Tyson, clearly. I’ll go talk to him.”

“Are you sure that’s a—okay, fine, go talk to him,” Gabe says as Nate shoulders past him roughly. “Don’t hurt yourself!” Gabe calls after him, and Nate can hear him and EJ laughing as he flips them off.

Nate knocks on the bathroom door and calls in, “Hey, come on, let me in,” in what he hopes sound like a pacifying, gentle voice. Then he bangs on the door repeatedly until it swings open and Sammy narrows his eyes at him. He’s got the pizza box on the counter next to the sink and it’s half gone so he’s _definitely_ been spending too much time around Tyson; Nate’s gotta get him on the O’Brien meal plan at some point.

“Come on,” Nate says when Sammy just stares at him. “I’m sorry, okay?”

“It’s nothing to be sorry about,” Sammy tells him, but his ears are very pink. “It’s just a surprise.”

“It wasn’t anything like you’re thinking. I just wanted to see what it would be like.”

Sammy studies his face, mouth set in what’s probably an involuntary frown by now. “Well?” he asks eventually, and Nate blinks.

“What?”

“What was it like?” Sammy asks, looking down at his feet.

Nate doesn’t laugh because he’s not a total dick; instead he thinks about it for a second and then shrugs like he did outside. “It was okay,” he says, and it’s another situation where he hopes he’s not turning red. From the look Sammy fixes him, he’s not totally successful, but at least he comes out of the bathroom and gives Nate some pizza.

It kind of feels like pity pizza in the end, but Nate just ignores that.

 

 

So Nate feels weirdly better after all that. It still sucks being on IR but he didn’t irreparably break his locker room in half by kissing EJ and pissing off Sammy, and also he kissed EJ and didn’t feel like a total lovesick rookie so. It’s all wins here.

He does enough skating and conditioning pretty fast that he feels like he shouldn’t miss much of a step once he’s back, plus it means he gets to spend more time around the guys. So he’s in pretty high spirits as the days on IR tick by and he starts to feel better and better about coming back soon.

It helps that the Avs are pretty much treading water while Nate’s out. He asks his mom to bake a chocolate cake, no nuts, writes “top line hero” on it in messy icing, and gives it to Kerf, who laughs for like 5 minutes straight.

Honestly, everything would be mostly fine, good even, if EJ weren’t low-key avoiding him. For the first few days it’s barely noticeable because it’s not like Nate and EJ have always been attached at the hip like he and Tyson. But soon it’s little things, like EJ ducking out of group lunches he totally would’ve gone to before, or not staying out too long when the guys are out at a bar after a game. The night he goes home even before the married guys, Nate starts to get a little worried.

EJ’s no loner. He’s always bothering someone at the very least, and it takes a little while but soon Nate realizes that he’s the only one EJ’s not bothering. No one else seems to notice except for Sammy, who apparently feels so bad for him that he offers to play Fortnite with him one day after practice.

Sammy is fucking terrible at Fortnite, as Nate discovers after he’s revived him for the fourth time and then is immediately sniped for his trouble. He watches Sammy make a run for it and tries to coach him through an ambush and then just laughs helplessly as Sammy gets shotgunned and eliminated while he’s trying to hide behind a tree. “Good game,” Nate says as Sammy puts his face in his hands. “That was fun.”

“I don’t like this game,” Sammy says through his fingers, and then he looks up with a glint in his eye. “EJ doesn’t like it too.”

Nate snorts, kind of impressed that Sammy’s bold enough to give it to him over this. “EJ is like 60 years old. 3D games probably scare him.”

“You’re just mad at him.”

“I’m not mad at him. He’s the one being a giant baby right now.” Nate starts up a new game and glares at Sammy until he joins with a sigh, wincing even through the bus countdown.

“This is ugly.”

“Just get some materials and try to build for us when we get swarmed. I’ll cover you and get the kills.” Nate kind of really wants to pile up some kills, and that has nothing to do with him being mad. He’s not mad.

He’s still not mad when Sammy gets knocked out within 10 seconds of their drop, nor is he mad when he gets his head blown off trying to build around them long enough to revive him. It’s fine.

“EJ is _right_ ,” Sammy says with feeling. “This is a shit game. How do people play without dying?”

“You just keep playing until you get good at it, like every game ever. EJ’s just a coward.”

Sammy gives him a long, measured look, and Nate splutters and adds, “I’m talking about the _game_.”

“You’re sure?”

“It’s fucking Fortnite, you dumbass. It’s not that deep.” Okay, _now_ Nate might be mad.

“I’m glad I never make a move,” Sammy says, and Nate tries to start another game just to make sure they _are_ still talking about Fortnite. But Sammy doesn’t join it, and Nate groans out loud. “I don’t want EJ to ignore me.”

“You’re kind of a dick, aren’t you?”

Sammy shrugs, not looking nearly as apologetic as he should. Nate’s still a bit impressed. “I think if he’s being a giant baby, like you said, then maybe you should be grownup.”

“I think _you’re_ a baby and taking your advice would be the stupidest thing I could do.” Nate thinks about that for a second. “Okay, no. Second stupidest. First is Tyson’s.”

“You’re not that much older than me, Nate.”

“I’m older enough. Join the fucking match, Sammy.”

“No.” The rest of what Sammy says comes out in French and Nate played in the Q long enough to recognize the insults. “There are two giant babies,” Sammy eventually says in English. He finally joins the match, they drop and immediately get into a shootout with another duo converging on a chest, and then he laughs harder than Nate has ever seen him laugh when Nate gets taken out via grenade launcher.

“I’m never hanging out with you again,” Nate says as Sammy keeps laughing.     

 

 

Nate mostly ignores Sammy’s advice, which he thinks is absolutely the right call, at least until EJ goes down with another fucking shoulder injury. 

At this point, EJ injuries are sadly common enough that everyone knows he likes his space for a while, likes to stew and be hard on himself until he can pop back up again with a toothy grin and lots of weaponized self-deprecation.          

Which means that everyone’s going to leave EJ alone, and he’s not going to be around to not bother Nate anymore, and that maybe if there’s a good time to be a grownup, it’s now. Even if it’s still true that EJ’s been a giant baby. 

So Nate heads over to EJ’s house. At first he thinks about asking his mom to make something for him to bring and decides that’s a little ridiculous, so he stops at a bakery and picks up some veggie loaf he knows EJ likes, hoping that EJ doesn’t offer to share. 

He tries to practice what he’s going to say on the way over. Maybe start with a joke about how weak their shoulders are, leaving it open for EJ to make a joke about how they carry the rest of the team. He can propose that they watch something and let EJ pick and then give him minimal shit for picking 60 Minutes or some horse race that exists outside of time and space—how is it literally always horse racing season, don’t they get tired ever? Nate can make sure to ask that. 

Nate will see how all that goes before he brings up anything else. Unless EJ literally throws him out, which is a possibility though not a strong one, maybe even weaker than their shoulders—unless that happens, Nate’s pretty sure he can clear some air between them. He won’t say something like “Sorry I kissed you,” because that’s a little pathetic, and also a lie. Lying wouldn’t be very grownup of him. He won’t say anything close to “It was just a stupid kiss, can you stop being a little bitch about it?” because that’s too argumentative, immature. 

He’ll figure out something to say. 

So Nate gets there mostly prepared. He doesn’t even miss a beat when he rings EJ’s bell and hears “Get outta here!” from inside the mud room. He sees the curtain pull to the side behind the glass panes surrounding EJ’s front door and sees his narrowed eyes stare out at Nate, before they meet and EJ tugs the curtain back. “I’m busy,” EJ says, and Nate rolls his eyes.

“I’m not leaving.”

“You’re trespassing.”

Nate has to stifle a laugh, shaking his head up at the gray sky threatening to dump snow on them. “So call the cops, man.”

There’s a dull pause, long enough that Nate knows EJ’s actually contemplating that in one of his irrational _how far do I want to go to win a stupid argument?_ thought exercises, before he sighs and unlocks his door. “Finally,” Nate says, shoving past EJ hard enough that Gabe would be proud. “I don’t have all day, some of us actually have hockey to get ready for.”

“Fuck _you_ ,” EJ says viciously. He has a shoulder brace on over his t-shirt and he’s holding himself very still, and Nate wants to hug him and also start this over because it’s not at all how he had prepared. 

“Um, look,” Nate says, searching for the words he was sure were perfect in the car ride over here. None of them seem to want to leave his mouth just now, so he just shoves the bakery bag towards EJ, shrugging. “I got you a zucchini thing. A loaf or something.”

It’s EJ’s turn to roll his eyes. He has his weird, flesh-colored five o’clock shadow and his forehead seems semi-permanently creased. “Thanks. What do you want?”

“Just, y’know.” He clears his throat, feeling like a huge dingus. “Wanted to check on you.”

“How very Gabe of you.”

“Listen, I have shoulder injury wisdom to pass down,” Nate says, face feeling hot. 

EJ snorts. “Oh, do you? Like what?”

Nate’s mind is about as blank as it’s ever gotten, including before Grade 10 French tests. He’s not sure he could properly define the word _shoulder_ at the moment and sort of feels like he needs to dunk his head in ice water to clear it. 

EJ’s standing in front of him, all stiff and grumpy and radiating pain and unease. Nate probably shouldn’t have come—there’s a fucking _reason_ they all leave EJ alone during times like this—but at the same time he feels like he kind of had to come. Like this was inevitable, not because EJ gets injured all the time, that’s not funny, but because of Nate and what he’s been feeling and what he’s been ignoring. 

“Like the best cure for a bum shoulder is a blowjob,” Nate says. There is zero brain to mouth filter at work here; if he’d said that sentence in Finnish he wouldn’t have been more shocked at himself. From the look on EJ’s face, he’s not the only one, but that just makes him raise his chin and double down. “What do you say? Wanna give it a trial run?”

“What the fuck is happening right now?” EJ asks. This feels like a situation where, from the way he looks, a normal person would be stunned into silence. But EJ doesn’t quite work like that. “Seriously, did I hit my head instead of separate my shoulder? What the fuck?” 

“Good point,” Nate says, looking EJ up and down and also trying to look and sound 10 times more confident than he feels. He kind of feels like if he tips his hand even for a second—revealing that he too has no fucking clue what the fuck is happening right now—this doesn’t have even a chance of happening, and it kind of feels like it needs to happen. “We should get inside so you can sit down. You don’t need to get more injured standing up against the wall.”

“I’m not—are you seriously trying to have sex with me by calling me injury prone?” EJ demands. “Is that really what this is?” 

“I’m not calling you anything, I’m just saying—we should try it.” Nate shrugs. EJ scrubs a hand over his face.

“Is this some kind of crisis you’re going through? I’m not Tyson.”

“Ew, I know. I wouldn’t—I know who I’m talking to. Are you in or out?” He keeps his chin raised, his eyebrows up, not quite daring EJ but maybe daring the both of them.

EJ starts laughing, not in a mean way, but in a sort of disbelieving, looking up at the sky and asking it why way, which Nate thinks is fair. He’s still holding the bag with the zucchini cake or whatever in it, dangling from one hand, and he takes it with him when he starts wandering into his own living room, still laughing.

“Yeah, okay. Whatever’s going on, I’m in. What the fuck.”

“Awesome,” Nate says, and he takes off his shoes and sort of jogs after EJ, getting into the living room just in time to see EJ plop gently down onto his couch and toss the zucchini shit onto the coffee table. 

“The dogs are still at day care,” EJ says when he sees Nate looking around. “They get a little excited sometimes.”

“Makes sense,” Nate says. EJ gives him an eyebrow-raised, fully skeptical look that morphs into shock again when Nate sinks to his knees between the couch and the coffee table. 

“Oh what the fuck, you were serious?”

“Yes? Did it sound like a joke?” Nate asks. EJ just tilts his head up to the ceiling again, mouthing something Nate can’t make out, so Nate just waits patiently on his knees until EJ looks back at him. “Did you change your mind?”

“Are you sure about this?” EJ asks him back. “This is going a little far just to mess with me.”

“I’m not messing with you,” Nate says. “I want to try it.”

“ _Why_?”

It’s a fair question, but the only answers that Nate still has at this point just make him sound like a huge jerk. The crush skipped him as a rookie and he thinks he may have missed out on some important development that Gabe and Tyson both had. He can’t stop thinking about it. He thinks if he tries this and EJ isn’t a huge tool about it he’ll be able to put this entire thing to bed and maybe things will go back to normal.

That’s all worth a blowjob, Nate thinks, but not any kind of serious discussion. Maybe that’s not the most mature approach but whatever. He can be mature about other stuff.

So he shrugs, and EJ groans, so Nate says, “Whatever, man. It’s not like you’ve never done it before, right?”

“Have you?” EJ asks, a weird, searching note in his voice. Nate shrugs again and waves in a way that hopefully conveys _that’s life in the Q, buddy_ effectively. Maybe it does, because EJ groans again and puts his hand on the side of Nate’s face, cupping it for a minute. His fingers sift through the hair at the back of his head, down his neck, putting the slightest bit of pressure until Nate’s looking up a little more, looking him right in the eyes. 

“Are you _sure_?” EJ asks him, his voice breaking only at the very end, but his eyes like steel, searching Nate’s. 

Oh, Nate thinks, blinking a little. He thinks he might shiver a bit, which is pretty annoying, but—“Yeah,” he says, and _his_ voice breaks on the whole thing which is just so typical he almost breaks the moment to roll his eyes at himself.

Instead, Nate focuses on not losing his nerve, the one thing tethering him to this entire situation. He works to keep his hands steady as he pulls EJ out, using his slightly hitched breath as fuel to keep going. 

EJ isn’t very hard yet, which is fair—and Nate falters a bit, then; should he have kissed EJ? That didn’t work too well last time. Is it weird that he’s kind of further along than EJ and they really haven’t done anything? Maybe it’s just the age thing, which is exhilarating and humiliating to think of—but he shakes all that off with another raise of his chin. He looks EJ in the eye when he spits in his hand and starts jacking him off, and bites down on his lip when EJ laughs a little, softly.

“Don’t laugh at me.”

“I’m not laughing at you, it’s just—”

“Shut _up_ ,” Nate snaps, and it’s a definitely a weird feeling, trying not to laugh when he’s got his teammate’s hardening dick in his hand. But what part of this hasn’t been weird at this point? Nate’s not sure he’d be interested in that part. 

“You look like a Boy Scout trying to start a fire,” EJ says, putting his face in his hand and laughing helplessly. He jolts when Nate twists his wrist, a hard, sharp tug, but he doesn’t look at Nate again until Nate leans in and draws his tongue up the length of EJ’s dick. 

“Just Scout, dummy,” Nate says when EJ trains wide eyes on him, like even at this point he didn’t think Nate was really going to do it. “I’m Canadian.”

“Oh my go—” The exclamation clips off as Nate gets EJ’s dick in his mouth and mostly keeps it there until EJ forgets how to talk. 

Nate keeps up a pretty persistent rhythm, only breaking to adjust himself and curse himself for wearing jeans here. He must have known, deep down somewhere, that he was going to do this once he got here and that he was going to like it this much. It makes sense in a nonsense sort of way. 

Nate cups his fingers around the base of EJ’s dick and hums around the rest of and watches EJ’s head tilt back, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows hard.

So Nate does what he can to swallow, too, relishing the punched out groan EJ gives, his sharp eyes bright and fixed on Nate again, like he needs to see to believe. Nate tries to be smooth about it, chokes a little of course, pops back up to tongue the head in recovery, and closes his eyes as EJ’s breathing picks up, harsh enough that he probably didn’t even notice Nate’s screw up. 

He’s clearly into it, which Nate gives himself a mental pat on the back for, then a literal pat on the dick as the pressure keeps building there. He groans a little before he can help it, taking EJ deep again, losing himself far enough that he needs EJ’s fingers in his hair to come back to himself a little, to look up and meet his eyes.

EJ barely seems to want to meet them, his face all red, a bit of dampness darkening the hair at his temples. He swallows hard again and says, “Yeah, I’m gonna—” and groans when Nate shrugs and keeps at it. 

It’s not long then and Nate takes it like a champ, feeling impossibly pleased with himself when he finally pulls back and wipes across his mouth with his forearm. “Results may vary,” Nate says, and his own voice surprises him, all gravelly low, thick like syrup, but he keeps going because EJ still seems beyond words above him. “But some trials reported a 90% success rate, so we can add this one to the data if it—”

“The fuck are you talking about?” Okay, maybe EJ’s never beyond words. That’d be just typical, wouldn’t it? Nate presses the heel of his hand into the front of his jeans and tries to blink away warning stars. 

“The—the trial, the shoulder injury wisdom, I said—”

“Shut the hell up and get up here.”

Nate stands up and drops into EJ’s lap in what feels like one fluid movement, gasping as his crotch comes into contact with EJ’s torso, muttering out, “Sorry,” as he hears and feels him grunt. 

“I’m fine,” EJ says, sounding impatient and frustrated, his hand fiddling between them. It doesn’t quite connect for Nate why until his zipper’s down and his dick is _out_ and EJ swears softly in his ear and strokes him too roughly for how close he is, for how embarrassing this could be. 

“I’m gonna—watch out—” And EJ kisses Nate instead of letting him say anything, mouths pressed together hard and firm. Nate comes, feeling bad about it and also like he’s supposed to, all over EJ’s hand and t-shirt, giving him too much of his weight as he’s kissed his way through it.

Eventually he blinks stupidly back into reality, anchored by the wet, gummy feel of EJ’s mouth opened against his that shouldn’t be as good as it is. They break the kiss but keep their foreheads pressed together, both breathing hard, and then Nate sits back a little.

“Can’t ignore me now, dick,” he says, looking between at them at the mess he made. 

EJ shakes with laughter, looking up at the ceiling again. “Are you talking to my actual dick, or—”

“No, I’m calling you a dick, come on.” He gives EJ a light punch to the chest, then rubs his hand down EJ’s good upper arm, looking at him seriously. “Don’t do that again.”

“I won’t,” EJ says, equally serious for a minute. But then he grins, gapped and wide and making Nate’s stomach flutter a bit. “I mean, maybe I will if this is how you deal with getting ignored—”

“EJ,” Nate groans, shaking his head. Of course that’s not enough to stop EJ, who is patently the worst.

“No, I mean it. So if this is what happens when I ignore you, where would you let me put it if I insult you?” 

Nate shoves him as hard he’ll allow himself while EJ’s injured, which is still probably too hard. But EJ’s just laughing, brighter than Nate’s ever seen him when he’s on IR, brighter than Nate had managed on IR at all, so really the thing to do is just kiss him again, wet and thorough, leaving the mess and the zucchini cake thing to deal with later. 

 

 

Nate was right, though; EJ can’t ignore him after that. Mostly because EJ’s still stuck on IR and therefore home a lot and whenever Nate’s home, he just kind of shows up and they mess around. Pretty hard to ignore someone in that situation.

It makes Nate a little grateful for the timing of it all. Not that he’s happy EJ’s not playing—certainly they’re starting to feel that on the ice, at a kind of crucial time down the stretch as they fight to keep the playoff dream alive—but he is happy that, for this first little while, he doesn’t have to share EJ. It’s just their thing that’s happening, quiet and mostly in the confines of EJ’s couch and occasionally his bed. It’s nice. 

So he doesn’t brag to Gabe and Tyson, even if that might be his initial instinct, fleeting and a bit nagging. Nate wants to be more mature than that. He keeps the secret the way he keeps Sammy’s, even though that’s not much of a secret anymore. 

In fact, it’s so not a secret anymore that they’re down to using it as a bit of stress relief, a group of Nate and some of the rookies ribbing Sammy about it when they go out for drinks. Josty leads the way of course and at his age, Nate should probably put a stop to a game that’s basically like a warped version of “who would you do?” but, well. When it turns to EJ, Nate can’t help feeling curious. 

So when Josty laughs out EJ’s name to watch Sammy turn pink, Nate doesn’t step in when JT says, “Come on man, we all know Sammy’s answer there.”

Sammy, like the champ he is, just laughs and shrugs. Josty isn’t satisfied with that.

“So that’s a yes? A hell yes? An _ooh EJ, let’s do it_?” He puts on a ridiculously high voice that sounds nothing like Sammy as well as a thick Quebecois accent that actually sounds a lot like Sammy, and the whole table of them is in stitches. 

“I guess yes,” Sammy says eventually, shrugging again. He grins at Josty. “I don’t do it like that, though.”

Nate, a grown adult drinking a grown adult beer, not the oldest person at the table but old enough, does not giggle out “I know how EJ likes to do it.” He just doesn’t. He’s too mature.

He does, however, say, “I still don’t get it, man,” not really thinking about how Sammy knows a least a little bit of it until it’s too late. He knows enough to give Nate a deeply skeptical look that says he doesn’t believe Nate one bit. 

So there’s a note of stubborn challenge in his voice when he adds, “What’s so great about EJ?” 

Sammy is a gem, so he doesn’t say something like “He’s not _that_ bad of a kisser, you liar,” even though he totally could say that to Nate. Nate would know it’s true better than Sammy does. Instead, Sammy shrugs one more time and says, “I don’t know, it’s just EJ,” which makes a certain kind of sense to Nate. 

“He’s tall,” Kerfy says, making the table crack up again. 

“We need to be recording this,” Josty says, grinning. “He’d want to hear this, I think. Little cheering up on IR.”

“No one’s recording shit,” Nate says firmly, because if there’s one thing he’ll be an adult about here, it’s this kind of thing. Fuck social media. “And EJ doesn’t need his ego stroked, believe me.”

“Yeah but I bet he needs some other things stroked,” Josty says, so easily Nate is deeply ashamed he set that one up. 

As such, he groans a little and says, “All right, before we offend Sammy’s virgin ears—” Sammy lets out a stream of offended French and flicks Nate, _hard_ , in the ear. “—ow, stop that! Who’s the next guy? Who else would you do?” 

And then even though it’s not even JT’s turn yet, he still blurts out “Gabe,” and then sits there wide-eyed while everyone around him loses their shit.

Later, Nate drives past his own house despite the time and pulls up EJ’s driveway and wakes him up with the doorbell, taking time to say a long hello to the dogs in the front hallway while EJ glares at him. 

Nate looks up at him, grins, and says, “You really are tall,” and doesn’t explain even when EJ demands it, just pushes him back towards the living room with kisses, trying not to trip over the dogs. 

Then he and EJ give each other handjobs, Nate unable to keep the grin away, EJ staring at him with that same slightly baffled look he usually has when they meet up like this. When he’s passing the tissue box between them and they’re wiping off and pulling their pants back up, he says, “You really don’t know what the fuck you’re doing here, huh?”

Nate blinks and then narrows his eyes. “What? Was it bad?” He looks pointedly down at the stain on EJ’s gym shorts, then looks back up with questioning raised eyebrows. 

EJ laughs and shakes his head. “It wasn’t bad. I’m just kind of sick of feeling like I’m missing something here, that’s all. And I’m kind of feeling like there’s not much to miss with you.” It sounds a little bitter, which Nate tries to write off as another typical IR symptom, but—

“We were talking about you, at the bar,” Nate says, and he can’t believe he’s doing this but it just seems fair. “Half the team wants to bang you still.”

That baffled look is back, with a hint of a dirty sort of grin, too, as EJ stretches for the humor in this. “Still?” 

“Just saying, you haven’t lost your touch with the rookies,” Nate tells him, rolling his eyes. “But I bet you already knew that.”

“I mean, you’re here.”

“The fuck? I’m not a rookie!”

“Then what is this, bragging rights?”

“No, I haven’t told anyone about this.”

“Oh,” EJ says, clearly not expecting that. Nate feels annoyance start to bubble up; did EJ really think Nate’s still that idiot that blasts all his business and feelings all over the place? He’s over that, he knows better now. Nate has to wonder how far they have to go with this before EJ will stop thinking of him like that; he’s willing to go pretty far, he thinks. 

“Yeah, oh. It’s nobody’s business.”

“Right,” EJ says, but he still looks confused. Nate doesn’t really know where to take this next: _hearing about how much other people want you makes me want you more_ isn’t a real thing he can say or even properly conceptualize, and it doesn’t feel entirely true. _I just want you_ is too much, too soon, an overload of Nate feelings he has to get a handle on already. 

“I mean, is it bad?” Nate asks again, tilting his head and meaning it earnestly, no teasing or joking in his voice. EJ’s older and also an asshole so Nate can’t imagine he’s pressured him into something he doesn’t want, doesn’t think he’s capable of doing that either way, but still. He likes being sure. He likes the thought of EJ liking this just as much as he does, even if he doesn’t want Nate the same way. “You’re having fun, right?”

“Right,” EJ says again. It’s a little firmer this time, and he looks Nate right in the eye before kind of pulling him across so he’s halfway in his lap, looking down at him. He kisses Nate slowly, opening him up to it, and then breaks it off just as Nate’s breath starts to come a little faster, fingers tightening over EJ’s arms. 

“Shoulder?” Nate asks, because they’ve been careful. EJ looks up at him and shakes his head.

“My shoulder’s fine. Just—you want to go to bed?”

“Yeah,” Nate says, and he touches their foreheads together in a gesture he hopes and fears says how much. 

 

 

EJ’s shoulder is soon fine enough to start doing heavier skates again, and then he’s really getting better and around the team all the time and it’s—it’s good. Nate had been apprehensive, afraid of breaking what’s felt like a fragile peace, and they’re not sneaking into each other’s rooms on the road or anything, but it’s good. They’re still Nate and EJ with the team, their dynamic hasn’t changed, and that’s a relief. Nate doesn’t really like much change. 

“So when I’m back,” EJ says one morning, when they’re up early enough that Nate can sneak back into his own house without waking up his parents like a fucking teenager, ugh. EJ had been weirdly game to wake up with him, probably because he thinks the whole thing is hilarious.

“When you’re back?” Nate says, trying to tamp down the excitement in his voice. They need to win, and they need EJ, and EJ needs to be playing. And Nate’s excited for him to come back. 

“When I’m back, are we still gonna—” He gestures vaguely between them. Nate is zipping up his jeans and then checking his t-shirt for any suspicious stains just in case he does wind up encountering his mom while he tiptoes across the front hallway, and he blinks and looks up at EJ.

“Yeah? I mean, I want to.”

“Cool,” EJ says, and he sounds like a huge dork as always when he says things like that. Nate smiles at him for no particular reason, getting a full sans teeth grin in return. “Awesome, me too.”

“What, you think I only fuck with gimpy guys? What the hell?” 

“No,” and EJ’s laughing, mouthing _gimpy guys_ against his headboard. “No, it’s cool that you want to.”

“EJ,” Nate says, and he sits down on the end of the bed near EJ’s feet. His legs are crossed at the ankles and he hadn’t bothered to put on clothes after last night—neither had Nate, to be fair—and it’s always a little unsettling how much Nate likes this version of EJ, how there’s nothing confusing about him anymore. Gabe and Tyson and Sammy all make extra sense to him now but more than all of them, EJ makes sense, and how much Nate likes EJ. 

And that’s all really embarrassing and childish and vulnerable. “I’m the one that keeps coming back,” Nate tells him carefully, trying to be as insistent and clear as possible without blurting out the massive tons of stupid shit he feels. “I want this. Whatever we’re doing, I’m in.”

“Cool,” EJ says again, his grin widening, and Nate shoves him and topples down on top of him. EJ grabs his wrists and holds them together and yeah, by the time Nate gets home his parents are having breakfast in his kitchen and there is, in fact, a stain he has to hide on his shirt. 

“Uh,” Nate says. “Sorry. Crashed at Tyson’s.” 

His parents look very amused, and even Cox looks up to give him a very unimpressed look from his prime bacon-begging spot at Nate’s dad’s feet. “Hope you had a nice night,” is all his mom says, which makes he and his dad both turn the same shade of red, and Nate just goes to his room in his own stupid grownup house and groans on his king-sized bed for like 5 minutes.

Then he gets up and changes and eats breakfast with his parents, because he loves them and he’s an adult and they’re guests and that’s what adults with guests are supposed to do, walks of shame and all. 

And then, in the middle of all the losing, all the shooting themselves in the foot and playoffs starting to feel like a shaky dream they’re about to wake up from, EJ comes back. He plays in a huge win against Detroit, the kind of win they haven’t had in weeks, and everyone is fucking thrilled. 

There’s lots of yelling in the locker room after, DMX blasting through all the noise by Nate’s own hand, throwing tape and tossing equipment and shoving and happy nakedness. It’s such a good locker room to be in. At one point, Nate catches EJ’s eyes across the room and sees a promise reflected there, burning bright blue and hard, and then he’s Josty knocking into him and pinching his side and he has to think _later_.

He feels good. He feels even better _later_ , when he follows EJ home and then follows him right to the bedroom and EJ says, “So I’m back now,” and somehow Nate knows what he means. 

Nate undresses alongside him and thinks, the whole time, about how he’s going to fuck EJ: where he’s going to put his arms, what parts of him he’s going to hold onto, how badly he wants to see his face. He takes a split second to wonder if any of the others ever got this far but it’s fleeting, lost in the overwhelming throb of hot wanting turning his brain into mashed potatoes. It doesn’t really matter. 

What really matters, like the most, is the look on EJ’s face once they’ve been making out and grinding their dicks together for a bit and Nate says, “Hey, can I eat you out?” into EJ’s opened mouth. It stays open, a little slack, so Nate keeps kissing him until EJ pushes him back and makes him repeat himself. 

“Seriously?” EJ says, laughing in that surprised way he always does. Nate has started taking it as a compliment. Nate puts his hand on EJ’s ass and squeezes hard in a way that hopefully conveys seriousness. “Oh, f—okay, yeah, go for it.”

“Awesome,” Nate says, and he starts maneuvering EJ onto his belly before he can lose any nerve. 

EJ’s a big guy but Nate’s strong, and he always feels stronger when he sees how easily EJ moves the way Nate wants him to, like he’s made of water. Sometimes he feels even stronger when EJ’s the one pushing him around, holding him down without holding back on any power, giving it to him exactly as hard he likes because he knows Nate can take it. 

And he has that same sort of feeling when he breathes EJ in here, pushes his face in between his spread cheeks and just starts savoring this. EJ, who is shaking a little, who laughs out a bit when Nate first licks him, then breaks it into a groan when Nate goes deeper—EJ can take it, Nate decides. He trusts that. 

So he fucks EJ with his tongue until it’s sloppy and wet and EJ is starting to grind back against his face a little. Nate gets lost in it, humming a bit and enjoying himself, feeling EJ loosen and tighten up in stages beneath his mouth, against his chin. 

“You fucking—” EJ says accusingly when Nate gives him a smacking kiss there, but Nate never finds out what he fucking is because EJ’s just groaning again, enjoying himself the way Nate is, which is just the absolute best.

Nate could just keep doing this, has before, could tongue them both across the finish line if he has to, but eventually EJ swears extra loud and says, with such clarity it jars Nate from his blissful stupor: “Okay, dick time now.”

Nate bursts out laughing, then has enough sense to pull back a little as he feels EJ shuddering all over. “Dick time now!” he repeats, falling forward until his face is planted in the sheets by EJ’s bare thigh, his hands still holding loosely onto EJ’s ass. “You are something else, man.”

EJ rolls onto his side, looking down at where Nate is suddenly eye level with his dick. Nate beams at it, feeling puffed up with pride, and then leans forward just to lick it a little bit before EJ growls and folds himself in half to drag Nate up the bed.

“Stop that,” EJ says, eyes moving rapidly over Nate’s warm face. Nate tries to tamp down on a giggle, can’t, and EJ rolls his eyes. “Jesus Christ, your mouth.” 

EJ puts his fingers on Nate’s lips; they feel slightly swollen, his chin tight, the surrounding skin a little sore. It feels so fucking good, even better when EJ presses down. Nate lets his mouth fall open with a gasp. “ _You’re_ something else,” EJ says lowly, but not like it’s a bad thing; he sounds a little in awe. 

Nate preens a bit, unable to help it. He feels like a million bucks. He says, “Come on, we’re not even done, you said it! Dick time no—”

“You’re never, ever letting that go, are you?”

“No way. If we make the playoffs it should be our official hashtag.”

“I can’t stand you.” 

“Yeah you can,” Nate says softly, and EJ snaps to meet his eyes. 

Their shared gaze holds for a while before EJ breaks it to say, “So, come on, is that all you want to fuck me with?” He smacks Nate’s ass with both hands. 

Nate grins, and if he fumbles going for a condom and the lube it’s not for a lack of nerve—he’s excited, pleased with himself, happy that EJ’s happy. It’s easier than maybe it should be, stretching EJ out, getting him ready and wanting again, then sliding into him carefully until EJ tells him not to be a dipshit and fuck him already. So he does.

Turns out he really does want to see EJ’s face, and he gets to. It’s a really good face. 

After, Nate catches his breath on EJ’s heaving chest, shivering a little as he comes down. EJ holds him tight, rubs his back, and then Nate feels like enough of a person again to slide off a little, settling down next to EJ.

EJ doesn’t let him go far, and Nate smiles into his chest. “You’ve been holding out,” EJ tells him, voice a soft rumble beneath Nate’s cheek. 

Nate laughs. “What! Come on. I couldn’t show you all my tricks right away, where’s the fun in that?”

“It’s not right. I got into this for the shoulder-healing blowjobs, I didn’t know you were into—all that.” He gestures vaguely over them and Nate laughs again, delighted. 

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Nate says, and it’s a joke but EJ doesn’t laugh like he expected. Instead when Nate looks up at him, he’s looking down at him intently, his eyes free of their usual, direct sharpness. He just looks fond and Nate feels himself heating up in response, enjoying it more than he probably should. 

Nate wants to bottle that look up, to wrap himself up in it and keep it like a sweater. He leans up and kisses EJ to try to tell him that. 

 

 

And then, obviously, because things were just going too damn well, EJ’s injured again, a broken kneecap. Done for the rest of the regular season and whatever playoffs they can manage, which doesn’t look all that great now.

It feels like getting punched in the throat, especially since they’ve had so many chances to secure their spot and now, this. The team takes it like the death sentence it seems, the mood dark and stifling in the room as word travels from guy to guy, and it’s only Gabe that manages to perk people up, stubborn and bright the way he always is, telling everyone who will listen that they can still do this, that they will do this.

It’s hard to believe him. It’s harder still when Nate heads to EJ’s place after practice and finds himself turned away, for real this time, EJ refusing to open the door for him no matter how hard Nate pounds on it.

He sends Nate a text: _I don’t want to fuck around anymore_ and Nate’s blood goes cold, first with fear, then with fury.

He resumes pounding on the front door; the dogs are barking. “Open the fucking door and say that to my face,” Nate yells, not really caring about what EJ’s neighbors probably think of him. “Open it up, you coward!”

It’s another minute or two but the door finally swings open, revealing EJ on crutches, white-faced and furious. “Don’t call me that,” he says, jaw clenched. “Just stop. Go away.”

“Fine,” Nate says, because if EJ’s really done he’s not going to fight with him about it. It’s fair—Nate started this and he never gave EJ a good reason and he’s not going to _now_ , when things are so ugly and broken and scary. Every part of himself feels like it’s flying out onto the surface now, all of his anger and worry about the season, and it’s easier to think about it all being about hockey than about anything else. “Fine, but fuck you. You are a coward. We need you.”

EJ uses one of his crutches to point at his own knee, thick with a soft cast under his sweats. “Sorry about that. Gimped up again.” 

Nate growls. “You really think the only place you’re needed is on the ice? You’re an _idiot_.”

“Stop insulting me and go win the fucking Hart, I don’t want to do this with you anymore.”

“You’re not that fucking good of a defenseman!” Nate shouts, and he groans with frustration as it lands the wrong way, EJ’s face going red and his eyes narrowing with hurt as he moves to close the door in Nate’s face. Nate pushes in, shaking his head. “I mean—it’s not just that. You always do this. You get hurt and you sit around feeling sorry for yourself like we don’t _need_ you, like all you’re good for is blocking shots and rolling around the ice on your stomach.”

“Sorry I’m not good at being useless,” EJ says, so much bitterness and self-pity in his voice that Nate wants to shove him. “I don’t think you can blow me out of this, though, so why don’t you just—”

“I blew you because I _like_ you, you dumbass!” Nate says. It finally, finally shuts EJ up, his eyes going wide. “And that’s not the point.”

“It’s—it’s not?”

“No! It’s—it’s not even relevant right now.” Nate works hard to keep the shake out of his voice. “We don’t have to fuck around anymore, okay? I told you, I’m in if you’re in, so if you’re not in—but this is about hockey right now. Playoffs. If you’re just gonna give up and tell us all to fuck off so you can wallow in self-hatred, then fine. Do that. I just thought we made a deal.”

A while ago, when the horrible shadows of that horrible last season were still being chased away, a bunch of them made an agreement with each other: never again. They were never going to be embarrassed like that again, ever. 

For Dutchy, it meant something different; it meant wanting out. For the rest of them, it meant playing for each other, believing in each other. And that’s so much harder than just fucking off to chase playoffs somewhere else. It’s never felt harder than right now, when they’re slumping bad and everything seems so impossible and EJ doesn’t want anything to do with him anymore. 

But growing up means doing it the hard way sometimes. And Nate thinks maybe he’s been getting it wrong all this time: hiding everything away, not feeling your feelings because they might be too much—that’s the easy way. He should probably stop doing that. 

He loves his team so much. He wants to win with them, for them. He looks at EJ and thinks he doesn’t want to do it alone, but also that he fucking will if he has to.

EJ looks shaken, his eyes still very wide, his face pale. He opens his mouth a few times before closing it, leaning heavily on his crutches. Finally, he sighs and says, “I need some time.”

“We don’t have much time.”

“I know, I just. Please.” His voice breaks, and Nate nods. 

“Yeah, okay. Fine.” Nate starts to retreat, his stomach heavy and burning with disappointment. 

He’s halfway down EJ’s front steps when EJ suddenly says, “I’ve never done this before,” and Nate stops.

“What?”

“Like, fucking around with a teammate,” EJ says, shaking his head. “I just—I really don’t know what I’m doing here. And I kind of wish we’d just talked about it before we started because now—I’m pretty confused.”

“I’m sorry,” Nate says, guilt bubbling up over everything else. “I didn’t—Gabe and Tyson kept talking about how they used to—and Sammy—”

“I never— _did_ anything,” EJ tells him. “Not—God, Sam is like 11 years younger than me, I wouldn’t—”

“I’m 8 years younger than you,” Nate points out, and gets a glare that makes him feel a little better in return. 

“Yeah, _I know that_. I’ve been thinking about it nonstop. I always thought I’d never—but you started it. And it’s somehow—it’s different, and I can’t figure out why. You’re different.” He hunches his shoulders, something unidentifiable flickering over his face, before he says in a small but firm voice, “We’re friends, right? We—you were my friend, before we started this. It was different.”

Nate feels a rush of affection wash over him, so hard it’s almost staggering. He has to take a deep breath before he can say anything else, but it doesn’t stop his voice from breaking as he looks up and fiercely answers, “Yeah, EJ. We’re friends.” 

“Just some time, okay?” EJ tells him. “I promise. I just need some time for—on both counts.”

“You got it, man,” Nate says, and as he finally turns to leave he thinks it’s fair to wait for EJ to come to him for a change.

 

 

It doesn’t really take EJ that long, at least for the hockey part. He starts coming around after only a day or two, on crutches the first time, trading them in for a cane the next. He watches practices, fist-bumps guys on their way off the ice, goes with them on the California road trip and watches them lose out from the press box. His face is tight in the room after the game in LA, the game they fucking needed, because there’s only one game left after this and it’s do or die. 

Nate’s a little embarrassed because he dragged EJ back into this and acted all determined and now he can’t even hold up his end of the bargain. Fuck the Hart, he just wants to win a game. 

But EJ says the right things in his EJ way. He yells at the team the way Coach never does, the way they need sometimes, because it’s stuff like this: “We can do it,” and “We all know we can. You all know it.”

The “we” is what makes Nate’s heart flutter, makes him feel like if he hasn’t done anything else, at least he did this. At least he got EJ back here, with them. 

Apparently his heart flutters loud enough for Gabe and Tyson to finally take notice, or maybe his face is doing something spectacularly stupid and noticeable around EJ. Whatever, Nate isn’t afraid of wearing his heart on his sleeve anymore. He trusts EJ to figure it out eventually, whatever the way forward is. 

Gabe and Tyson corner him on the flight home from LA, though, Mikko snoring in the seat next to Gabe, EJ sitting with Sammy a few rows up. EJ’s been extra attentive with Sammy lately, singling him out to give advice and coaching, and Nate watches him blossom under the attention without any jealousy. Well, not much. 

He just happens to be looking in their direction when Gabe pops up over the back of his seat like a meerkat. “I know that look.”

“I think we all know that look,” Tyson says, giving Nate a very white, bright smile. Nate groans and shakes his head.

“Don’t start with me.”

“Has it finally happened?” Gabe reaches around the side of his seat to pull Nate’s wrist over and pretend to take his pulse. “Hm. Pulse is a little fast.”

“Face is a little red,” Tyson adds, and he puts the back of his hand over Nate’s forehead, frowning. “A little warm, too.”

“Will you both get off?” Nate says, jerking away from them. Neither of them look even the least bit apologetic, which is just typical. 

“The symptoms are there,” Gabe says gravely, as if he hadn’t spoken. “We’ve all seen the signs. I know we’ve been a little, ah, distracted lately—”

“But that doesn’t mean we can just ignore matters of the heart,” Tyson says. His grin is somehow growing, and Nate might be rooting for it to just split his face in half. 

Since that’s not super likely to happen, and they’re both staring at him like smug cats with canary feathers sticking out of their mouths, he probably needs to say something to them. Probably something like “Fuck off,” or “I’m not fucking talking about this.”

Probably _not_ something like, “Listen, EJ and I have banged like, multiple times at this point. I’m really into him but I’m giving him space to figure things out right now.” But that’s what Nate says, in a voice low enough that only Mikko could hear them if he were awake, and that’d be okay because it’s Mikko. 

It’s probably the most effective method he’s used in shutting them up all year, because they’re both just staring at him like he’s sprouted a second and third head. Nate takes their silence as an opportunity to unclip his seatbelt and say, “I’m going to go sit with Josty now. Have a good flight, fellas,” and get up from his seat very calmly and carefully.

That’s how he winds up getting full-body tackled in the aisle of the team plane by his captain, while his best friend screeches wordlessly at them. That garners the attention of the entire team, which is perfect cover for Nate to escape and hide with Josty when Comes suggests they break it up and all sit in different parts of the plane until they can behave. 

Then he gets to speed home without looking at Gabe or Tyson, only mumbling a goodnight to Mikko, and hide in his room after telling his parents to bar the door for anyone who tries to come after him. His mom promises and Nate hugs her and tells her how much he appreciates her staying with him, and goes to bed smiling. 

_if we make the playoffs i’ll tell you everything_ Nate texts Gabe and Tyson together, and he ignores all the angry swearwords and violent emojis they send to sleep peacefully for the first time in forever.

He really wants to make the playoffs. 

So when Game 82 rolls around, that’s what Nate decides they’re going to do. Before the game, the locker room is too quiet, even with EJ in there and Gabe shouting things to pump people up. “Guys,” Nate says, and he looks at everyone, blinking back at him with surprise on their faces. He’s not a speech guy, like to just go out there and do his job and hopes that speaks for itself, but he hasn’t exactly been doing that lately so maybe it’s time to switch it up. “We’re gonna do this, okay?”

Silence. Someone coughs, but everyone is staring at him, and Nate feels his face flame up. “It’s one fucking game,” he says, raising his voice a little. He looks at EJ, who won’t look away, and nods. “One game. Two points and we’re in. We can do that. We’re going to do it. All of this shit—this fucking garbage we’ve been in, none of it matters now. Because it’s just one game and we can handle one game. Right?”

“Right,” EJ says, voice ringing out across the room. 

Gabe pounds the side of his stall and says, “Let’s fucking go, Nate’s right,” and Tyson echoes, “Nate’s fuckin right,” and Comes’ voice booms out, “Let’s _go_ , boys!” on his own until Mikko joins in, then Sammy, then everyone just kind of yelling stuff at each other, laughing and tapping sticks and shoving each other on the way out. 

EJ stands by the doorway and basically punches everyone on the back as they leave for warmups, and when it’s Nate he leans up to knock his forehead against Nate’s helmet. “One game,” he says, voice low. “Two points. You got this.”

“We got this,” Nate says, can’t help it. He grins and EJ grins back, smacking him on the back like all the others.

“You’re something else,” EJ tells him, like he’s in awe again, as Tyson shoves him from behind and gets him moving. Nate rides that feeling out like a wave, letting it crash over him and consume everything once he’s out on the ice. He doesn’t know what to call it yet but knows it’s like nothing he’s ever felt before and he feels like he can level cities with it. Two points seem easy with it.

And so everything that happens after that just makes sense: Sammy scoring first, reacting with a powerful roar of pure joy that smashes the entire team in the face. Nate feels like he’s never been that happy until _Tyson_ scores, and even after the nail-biting offsides review he’s so fucking high off it it’s not even too scary when the Blues score, too. 

When he answers with his own goal, a decisive, clinical shot that he powers past Allen with everything he has in him, everything feels more real, true, like they’re actually going to do this. Shouts of “Fuckin right, Nate!” rain down on him from the bench and he feels punch-drunk but somehow powerful.

And then Gabe scores the empty netter and they all lose their goddamn minds, jumping at each other, laughing and bursting and tangled up in each other in a pile on the ice. Nate jumps so high into Gabe it’s a shock when they come back down and he’s crushed under everybody else, Mikko’s weight bracing and comforting on top, and he thinks that he loves this team more completely than he’s ever loved anything in his life; he feels proud to be capable of holding all of that, of feeling all this at once. 

This feeling stays with Nate back in the room once they’ve done it, they’ve gotten their two points and _Nate was right_ and everyone is overjoyed. It swells under his skin as everyone takes forever to eat and change because they’re just so damn happy with each other, touching and hugging and yelling every few minutes. 

Gabe and Tyson are looking at him and Nate knows he has a deal to uphold, but first he finds EJ’s eyes. He still has this feeling, shaking with it, and he knows they’re two separate concepts, that one could survive without the other. But he also knows they’re connected, that they feed each other, and he wonders how he can make EJ understand that, whenever EJ’s ready to come to him again.

EJ meets his eyes, and they don’t say anything, but somehow Nate just knows that eventually, he’ll understand. This will be enough for now.

 

~*~

 

 **epilogue**

 

When Nate’s doorbell rings, he’s pretty suspicious. The only people who ever show up announced to his place are either Sid or his parents or his sister, who all have their own keys and never give Nate any privacy. 

He supposes it could be Andy, who also has a key but is somewhat polite about it. But it’s a rare off day from training and Andy’s usually good about leaving him alone those days.

So he’s a little worried as he approaches the door, enough to peek out the front window and check. Then he nearly injures himself tripping over his feet to get to the door because it’s _EJ_ , standing on his front steps with his hands in his shorts pockets and a bag at his feet. EJ, here, in Nova Scotia, a few feet away from Grand Lake. In Canada!

Nate fumbles with the door like he’s never opened one before and he hears EJ snorting on the other side of it. “I saw and heard all of that,” EJ is saying as he swings the door open and stares at him. “Hi,” EJ says, taking one hand out of his pocket to wave dorkily. 

Nate stares a few minutes longer, then punches him, not hard enough, in the gut. “What the fuck,” Nate says as EJ doubles over a little, eyes wide. “Why haven’t you been answering my texts? What the _fuck_?”

“Sorry,” EJ wheezes, holding his hands up. “Uh, didn’t pay for the roaming package—”

“ _Erik_.”

“—fine, sorry, I just—I needed more time to figure things out than I thought,” he finishes hastily. He still has his hands up, like he thinks Nate might hit him again. Nate is seriously considering it. 

At first, going their separate ways over the summer just seemed logical. They had talked some during the playoffs but they both agreed not to do much heavy lifting there to avoid distractions. Nate had been expecting _something_ after Nashville, once they had enough time to lick their wounds and get over it a little bit.

And then EJ threw an end of year barbecue and said he was going to California the next day. He made no move to get Nate alone, said nothing more consequential than, “Have a good summer, man, you deserve it,” before Nate left, and hadn’t answered any of the _what the fuck??_ texts Nate sent him after the fact.

Now they’re here, in Nova Scotia, on Grand Lake and in—EJ is at his _house_ and Nate has no idea what’s going to happen. He’d been so _sure_ , before the radio silence, before EJ brushed him off, but now—

“Why?” Nate asks, watching EJ cringe at his harshness.

“Uh,” EJ says. He rubs at the back of his neck. “I know you invited me here like a year ago so I’m a little late but can we maybe do this inside?” 

“No,” Nate says immediately, not caring how childish it is. “You can say whatever you want right here.”

“What is it with you and doing this stuff out in the open air?” EJ asks, and Nate shrugs.

“No one’s around but Sid, and he can’t hear us from his place.” When EJ looks skeptical, Nate suddenly yells, “Hey Sid! Can you hear us?” at the top of his voice.

EJ mutters, “Dammit, Nate,” but there’s no answer from his neighbor, so Nate grins smugly and crosses his arms over his chest.

“See? So say it. Then I’ll decide if the invitation still stands.”

“All right,” EJ says. He kind of rolls his shoulders and he’s looking embarrassed and a little unhappy with himself, which is more worrying than anything else. But in the next second, he seems to take a big breath, looks Nate right in the eye, and says, “Yeah, I figured out that I’m in love with you. And that’s a lot, maybe, and I have no idea if—you said you _like_ me but I don’t know if that means you could, maybe someday, _love_ me but I’m already there because I’m just that much of a sad sack so—”

“Shut _up_ ,” Nate says, too loud. EJ snaps his mouth shut and looks devastated for a few seconds before Nate hits him again, this time very lightly. “Don’t call yourself a sad sack for loving me,” Nate says firmly, trying not to belie the insane joy bubbling up inside him right now. 

Then he thinks, fuck it, and puts every bit of that insane joy in the kiss he lays on EJ’s mouth, jumping up into it like he jumped at Gabe after that empty netter, the same overwhelming thrill pulsing through his veins. “ _Idiot_ ,” he whispers between short, hard kisses, wrapping his arms around EJ’s neck like they’re fully in The Notebook right now or something. “Call yourself that again and I’ll throw you in the fuckin lake.”

“Okay,” EJ says, his grin pressed all over Nate’s face, his fingers fluttering over Nate’s back before they hold him steady for a harder, longer kiss. “Sorry,” he says again when they break apart again, looking down and meeting Nate’s eyes bravely the way he always does. “I just wanted to be sure.”

“I get it,” Nate says, shrugging. “I wanted that too, I just—”

“I know, I was an ass, I shouldn’t have avoided you, I didn’t want to—”

“I just missed you,” Nate finishes, saying it simply and evenly, not holding back anymore. EJ’s eyes burn into his, and he swallows hard. Nate swats him on the arm. “Because I love you, I guess. In case you didn’t get it.”

“I get it now,” EJ says, grinning sloppily. “So am I still invited in?”

“Yeah, I draw the line at fucking out here,” Nate says, and then he winces as a third voice calls over, “ _Thank you_!” from the house next door.

EJ’s jaw drops. “I thought you said—”

“Just get inside,” Nate says, laughing, pulling EJ into his home.

**Author's Note:**

> ...and then they go on a road trip across canada to visit jt, josty and kerf for that charity softball thing in bc, and then they go to gabe's wedding together, and i cut that suggestion out of the fic canonically because i don't want to commit to writing another sequel!!!! thanks for reading, bye.


End file.
